Sunday, August 04, 2013

Julie Akhurst tells to the Keighley News about all the Summer activities of the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

With a month of school holidays still to go, we’ve got two great family activity days coming up that might just help get you through those hot, lazy days.
Storyteller Christine McMahon will be at the Parsonage on August 8 to weave her magical tales for children in a series of sessions throughout the day, from 11am to 4pm, inspired by the northern folk tales once told in the Parsonage kitchen to the Brontë children by their housekeeper, Tabby. It’s a great way to pass on a little of your own Yorkshire heritage to your children, and you can drop in at any session. It’s free with museum entry.
Our half-day miniature ceramic houses workshop on August 17, starting at 1pm, forms part of a season of events linked with the Parsonage building itself. Artist Rachel Lee will show you how to use a variety of techniques to make lovely collectables – vintage lace and buttons are on hand to decorate – and your pieces will be fired and glazed at the artist’s studio, ready to collect later.
Older Brontë enthusiasts will enjoy a special after-hours evening at the museum, starting at 7pm, as David Cant of the Yorkshire Vernacular Buildings Group takes visitors on a special tour revealing its unique and interesting architectural features. (Read more)

This year’s Brontë Mountain Bike Challenge, in aid of Sue Ryder Manorlands hospice at Oxenhope, will take place on September 22.
The event features three routes, which are named after the Bronte sisters as they travel through the same landscape that inspired their world-famous novels. (...)
The toughest of the three routes is called the ‘Charlotte’. It is described as a 26-mile “extreme challenge” which takes in a notorious stretch known as the ‘stairs’ and goes over the moors to Widdop, Worsthorne, and back via a new section of the Pennine Bridleway.
‘Emily’ is an intermediate route of 21 miles, while ‘Anne’ is a beginner’s ride of 11 miles and is suitable for families and younger children. (Miran Rahman)

Not the only Sue Ryder fundraising event taking place these days. In Keighley News:

The Oxenhope Sue Ryder hospice is staging a moorland tea party, and everyone is welcome.
The fundraising event, on Sunday, August 18, will be at Whetstone Gate – known locally as Keighley Gate – above Riddlesden.
Tables, chairs, food, bunting and music will be provided. Participants are just asked to get there for 1pm and take along a small cake or bun for dessert.
The Ilkley Moor venue – at around 400 metres, or 1,312 feet – offers panoramic views across much of the area where Manorlands provides care.
Organisers of the “Tea at the Top” extravaganza are encouraging people to walk there – and suggested routes from Keighley, Ilkley and Bingley are provided on the event website, teaatthetop.org.uk – but vehicles can be taken close to the site. (Alistair Shand)

What is your earliest memory?
I claim to remember birth, even though I’m always told it’s impossible. And I remember being in a stage adaptation of Jane Eyre when I was a child, playing Jane’s abusive cousin St John, but the girl playing Jane was a foot taller than me, so I was this tiny kid beating up this huge girl. (Guy Pewsey)

We love this picture of the Ilkey Playhouse performances of Wuthering Heights at the open Minack Theatre in Penzance. On Getty Images:

The weather begins to change as the audience watch Wuthering Heights presented by Ilkley Playhouse at the Minack Theatre on August 2, 2013 in Porthcurno, near Penzance, Cornwall. The play is one of a number of week-long productions being hosted at the world famous open-air theatre throughout the summer from May until September. The theatre, built by Rowena Cade in the 1930's and carved into the granite cliffs above the sea at Porthcurno, attracts around 75,000 theatre-goers every summer to watch summer performances, ranging from Shakespeare to musicals. (Matt Gardy)

The final show stars two small leather puppets, Boris and Sergey in A Vaudevillian Adventure. This is puppetry for adults - they play poker, gyrate on an audience member's head and do a raunchy dance to Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. (Ian Youngs)

The Sunday Times talks about the stand-up comedy shows by Bridget Christie. At the Edinburgh Fringe she presents A Bic for Her (The Stand until August 25, not August 12, 11.10am) and there's a Brontë sketch:

Bic designs specially streamline pink pens specifically for women. Her set piece on the Brontës struggling to compose their works because pens were ill suited to their womanly grip is a perfectly timed mix of slapstick and spleen that has been long absent from comedy stages heavy with the casual misogyny of ironic rape jokes. (Stephen Armstrong)

The Sun talks about the boost of British tourism thanks to the success of Downton Abbey:

Joss Croft from VisitBritain said: “Adaptations of classics by Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters as well as the success of period dramas such as Downton Abbey are helping to increase interest in visiting stately homes.”. (Craig Woodhouse)

But ... a great accomplished contemporary artist and friend, Warren Kelly and I are planning an exhibit called: “A Light Invisible To My Eyes” (a line I read and felt was enigmatic from Charlotte Brontë’s novel, “Jane Eyre.”)
It will feature my icons with his own artistic, contemporary abstract rendition of them. It should be a very exciting and spiritually nourishing exhibit. We are looking for a venue, but are planning ahead confident one will appear !

The South Jersey News talks about the many housing developments with British names in the state:

Albion Court, The Runnings at Fox Chase, Gloucester Mews, The Clusters of Marlborough, Halcyon Lane, Drakes at the Greenwood or Greenwood at the Drakes, Mayfield Habitat and New Scotland Manor.
Wherever you turn, you seem to hit the Wuthering Heights. The implication is always the same — Old World England. (James Terminiello)

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Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own flambeaux, beholds her own splendour—gay dresses, grand equipages, fine horses and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even scores of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams.
~ Villette (ch. XXXVIII) by Charlotte Brontë